"We’ve spent the last few years building a completely new infrastructure
across the region from scratch. We have spent millions of pounds on scalable
and resilient infrastructure and have built nearly 100 new points of presence.
We can connect new customers to the network in a matter of days. There is
nothing like this anywhere else in Europe, let alone the UK!

There isn't a business in the area that cannot be reached by the Metronet (UK)
network. Furthermore, we don't suffer with the normal way leave issues that
plague the likes of Virgin & BT, extending lead-times and often pushing the
installation prices through the roof once the survey is completed."

Metronet (UK) Managing Director, James McCall

The network map which shows their points of presence and demonstrates
the reach of the network and has to make one question what the £12m that Manchester City Council is to spend on making the
city superconnected will actually be spent on. We are told "Manchester
Digital City bid aims to make ultrafast broadband available to 235,000 premises
- 224,000 residential and 11,000 businesses - across the city by 2014/15".
Assuming the £12m is matched by the council, and the private sector adds
another £16m the project only has £170 per property to spend to meet its
target. They also plan to roll out Wi-Fi across public areas and transport
corridors, which will eat into the money.

Many have questioned the spending of public funds to bring speeds of just
around 100 Mbps to the cities, when the majority of premises in 2013 will have
to 330 Mbps via Openreach Fibre on Demand available to them or 120 Mbps from
Virgin Media. The activities of companies like Metronet (UK) are currently
suggesting that there has been no total market failure, perhaps as with
Birmingham the money will get swallowed into pre-existing regeneration projects
as an attempt to attract business from other parts of the UK.

In the meantime those businesses that are in rural areas and it is not just
upland farmers that run businesses in the countryside, look set to compete for
a pot of just £20m (RCBF) funding that is to be spread across the UK as a
veneer of assistance.